


as only a soldier can

by sleepinnude



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, tag on for episode 5, this chapter is mostly introspective Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepinnude/pseuds/sleepinnude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke is coming back for just one reason, really: Raven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> mild spoilers for S02E05, last night's episode.  
> I promise Clarke and Raven interact in the next chaper.

A short conference among the three of them decides that the rescue mission to Mount Weather will have to be postponed. Finn and Murphy (but mostly Finn) need more immediate handling. Clarke pulls a length of rope from her pack but Bellamy stops her. They can’t treat Finn like a prisoner. He doesn’t realize that he did anything wrong and binding him up will only make the journey back more difficult. “We’ll keep a close eye on him,” Bellamy promises, his sister giving a fire-filled nod. Octavia was all for tying Finn up. For tying him to a tree and leaving him there. Clarke can’t say she doesn’t see where the girl is coming from. Bellamy’s level-head rules between them, though, and Clarke is thankful that she can leave the thinking to him for just this moment.

He’s come a long way from that angry kid that landed, after all.

It’s a long, long trek back to camp. Clarke started out with Bellamy and Finn, bringing up the rear. But Finn’s almost-childlike pleas broke her. He did it for her. To get to her. And it all worked out because he found her, he found her. Clarke has to swallow back screams. Has to swallow back curses and the burning ache of bile in her throat.

She ends up muttering out a “Yeah” to Finn before picking through to the front of the company, Murphy trailing next to her. He’s quiet, mercifully, seemingly changed in how much Finn changed. Clarke wonders what it means that she’s choosing Murphy over Finn and then wills herself not to think about it like that. 

She saw the Grounders — riddled with entry wounds. Grounders with guns, someone shouted at the dropship. They proved that they weren’t just weaponized Grounders. At least Clarke thought so, but here they are, dragging Finn along, insisting that he needs to get back for medical attention. A Grounder with a gun. Worse, yet, Clarke thinks. War rushes past her ears. She remembers Anya laying in the mud, mouth open and blood pooling on her chest, beneath Clarke’s hands.

Hysteria climbs in her throat and she wants to go back to the Grounders laying dead. Wants to gentle each of their eyes closed and tell them that their fights are over.

Mount Weather is Clarke’s fight, but it’s one she can’t do alone. Their plan upon arrival is uncertain — she doesn’t know whether they’re going to storm in and storm out or sneak in and rally out… Either way, she knows that Bellamy’s charismatic leader will be needed. She can reason well enough but her encounters in the Mountain with Jasper are enough to prove that won’t be enough. They want to stay. They need someone to convince them that they’re better off leaving, not just that they should leave because it’s wrong to stay.

Clarke remembers the forest of hands reaching out from cages, Grounders being bled dry.

Mount Weather is her fight, but right now her fight has a detour. After all, this is war. There are many battles. And her current battle is getting back to Raven. She needs to be the one to explain Finn to Raven. Not only because of Raven’s history with him, but because of the tangled up history of all three of them. Of Finn’s betrayal (because as innocent as it may have been, it was still a betrayal) of Raven before she landed. Of Finn, apparently, doing all of…of that for Clarke.

Her stomach turns violently again to think of it and Murphy has to yank her up from losing her footing. She murmurs a thank-you to him but his eyes are locked forward. One of the gruesome gashes on his forehead has reopened and there’s blood clotting over his eye but he doesn’t seem to care.

They pick their way back to the camp and Clarke tries to find the right words, any words at all, for Raven.


	2. Chapter 2

They roll back into camp but Clarke splits off. She wants to sneak in unseen so she can avoid the tumult of reprimands. Later, she’ll take whatever punishments from whomever wants to dole them out. She needs to get to Raven before word-of-mouth and gossip and tidbits of information. The rise of voices can be heard from where she’s wandering off. Bellamy clamoring above it explain. Finn, high-strung an confused. Octavia’s indignant shout.

Clarke keeps walking. She needs to get to Raven.

She finds the woman in the engineering bay. She’s fussing half-heartedly with something that sparks but looks up at the sound of Clarke’s boot-falls. “Hey!” she shouts, seeing her. She moves to jump up but catches herself at the last minute, remembering. “You’re back already?” There’s a breathless smile in Raven’s voice. She knows it’s too soon but she’s hoping against hope — if anyone could have got it done that quickly, she knows it’s Clarke.

Clarke swallows painfully and shakes her head. Immediately, Raven’s face falls. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

"Who died?" Raven asks immediately, sinking back against her stool. Clarke almost throws up because so many. _So many died, so many are dead. Finn killed them all._ “Oh god,” Raven’s voice cuts through. “Who died?” she asks again, a sense of desperation in the words now.

"No one from here," Clarke answers in a gasp. "B-but… But Finn…"

"Did he get himself hurt again?" Raven asks. She’s trying to joke but she’s nervous. Afraid.

It takes her awhile, swallowing around nausea and hesitation, but eventually Clarke gets the story out. Tells Raven about hearing the gunshots, about what they found at the Grounder camp, what Murphy told them and how FInn, unashamed, backed the story up. “He thought he was saving…us,” she finishes and she can’t look at Raven.

"You," Raven replies. There’s no anger in her voice, but a bit of disgust. Clarke can’t tell who it’s directed at: Finn or Clarke or Raven herself. "He thought he was saving you."

Clarke can only nod.

Raven sighs and runs her wrist across her forehead, shielding her eyes momentarily from Clarke. But Clarke knows that she’s not crying. “I don’t know what they’ll do with him,” Clarke says quietly, mostly just to have something to say. It was reprehensible, what Finn did, but it was to Grounders. Clarke isn’t sure that the adults would be so quick to punish him for the massacre of their enemy. Especially since she can’t explain that she’s not so sure they’re the enemy any longer.

Anya’s quiet rasp of _My fight is over_ rings in her ears.

"Who cares."

Clarke blinks. Inhales. Looks up. “Raven.”

Raven shrugs and turns away, starts fiddling with the sparking piece again. “No, really. That’s… What he did… That’s not okay. And I’m not okay with it. And if they punish him, good. And if they don’t, well. Fine, but I’m not—” Her voice catches. “I’m sure as hell not gonna be lining up to forgive him.”

Her hands shake and Clarke is fairly certain that it’s the first time she’s see Raven’s hands shake.

"You don’t have to pretend," she says quietly. Raven looks at her and it levels her without a word. “I just mean, you don’t have to act like it doesn’t affect you. Just because you don’t forgive him doesn’t mean… Doesn’t mean that you don’t wish he deserved to be forgiven.”

Raven looks at her again, but it’s not the unblinking dare that it was a second ago. It’s a quieter look. Something more accepting, thinking. “Kids?” she asks and there’s a shake in her voice.

Clarke licks her lips. Doesn’t answer. Slowly, she moved closer to Raven and sits on the stool next to Raven’s. Reaches out and takes her hand. She expected to have Raven drop her hand, pull away, put the brave face back on.

Instead, Raven held on. “Thank you,” she mumbles quietly, after a moment.”For…coming to tell me and all.”

Clarke shakes her head and traces a bloodied thumb over palm, calloused from leaning on the cane. She doesn’t tell Raven that she came back just to tell her, that she wanted to be the one to do it. It’s enough. Them sitting, hand in hand, the tumult outside growing. Them inside, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha GIRLFRIENDS hahaha -distant sobbing-


End file.
